INFOKARA RESEARCH ISSN NO: 1021-9056 East West Encounter in Anita Desai’s Novels Prakash Eknath Navgire Sir Vithaldas Thackersey College of Home Science (Autonomous) SNDT Women’s University Juhu Campus, Santacruz (w), Mumbai. [email protected] Abstract: Anita Desai is the famous writer in the Indian writing in the English. She handles the feminist issue, identity crisis and postcolonial issues in her fictions. The postcolonialism is mostly based on the east west encounters. The natives due to the education or job migrates in the foreign country and faces the trauma of identity. The connection between east and west begins with migration. The east west encounters primly focus on the culture, tradition, politics and the social changes in the life of the people. The current research paper focuses on the issue of east west encounters in the Anita Desai’s most famous three work of arts. Anita Desai manages the issue of east west encounters very positively in the fiction. The prime concern of her in the fiction about the love for own nation and the feeling of nationality is always in the unconscious mind of migrants. Keywords: - Anita Desai, east west encounter, postcolonialism, postmodernism Anita Desai is the most eminent name in the Indian writing in English. She is famous in the world for her feminist views in the literature. She is born in the city of Mussoorie in 1937. Her life is the best example of the east west encounter where her father is Bengali Businessman and mother is a German citizen. Anita Desai is before the marriage called Anita Muzumdar and her father is D. N. Muzumdar as an engineer. The initial life of Anita Desai goes in the city of Delhi with her two elder sisters. The quality as a writer develops in her due to multilingual family. Her father is a Bengali person, mother is a German and at the same time her stay at Delhi give her command over more than four languages, they are English, German, Hindi and Bengali. The skill of languages gives the power to her, that she can express herself well in the language. This make her to publish first story of her life at the age of nine. This is the quality as a writer fascinates her towards the literature and she completes her Bachelor of Arts from Miranda House of the University of Delhi in the year of 1957. Anita Desai gives an ample of literature to the world and handles social, political, feminist, cultural, racial and postcolonial issues in her writing. Volume 8 Issue 11 2019 1643 http://infokara.com/ INFOKARA RESEARCH ISSN NO: 1021-9056 The following novels and short stories she contributes in the field of literature, The Artist of Disappearance (2011), The Zigzag Way (2004), Diamond Dust and Other Stories (2000), Fasting, Feasting (1999), Journey to Ithaca (1995), Baumgartner's Bombay (1988), In Custody (1984), The Village by the Sea (1982), Clear Light of Day (1980), Games at Twilight (1978), Fire on the Mountain (1977), Cat on a Houseboat (1976), Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975), The Peacock Garden (1974), The Peacock Garden (1974), Bye-Bye Blackbird (1971), Voices in the City (1965), Cry, The Peacock (1963). Many of her novels comes form the experience of her day today life. Anita Desai marries with the director of the computer software company Mr. Ashvin Desai. Her husband also has a good taste of literature and he writes a book in his life Between Eternities: Ideas on Life and the Cosmos. It is necessary to talk about her children, she is the proud mother of four children. Her daughter Kiran Desai make her mark as the great Indian novelist in the world. Kiran Desai’s most famous book ‘The Inheritance of Loss (2006) gives her most prestigious prize ‘Man Booker Prize’ in the year of 2006. Anita Desai gives her best teaching to her kids, so they raised well in the world and make their own identity. Anita Desai’s in her life gets the best opportunity in the field of literature that, she receives the Sahitya Akademi Award for her most celebrated novel Fire on the Mountain (1977) in the year of 1978. As a writer her name is short listed for the Booker thrice in her life. The dream to get the booker prize is fulfilled by her daughter Kiran Desai. Anita Desai receives many prizes in her life for the literature she possesses. In that, Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for Fire on the Mountain in the year of 1978, Sahitya Akademi Award (National Academy of Letters Award) Fire on the Mountain in 1978, Shortlisted, Booker Prize for Fiction – Clear Light of Day in 1980, Guardian Children's Fiction Prize – The Village by the Sea: an Indian family story 1983, Shortlisted, Booker Prize for Fiction – In Custody in 1984, Neil Gunn Prize1993, Shortlisted, Booker Prize for Fiction: Fasting, Feasting1999, Alberto Moravia Prize for Literature (Italy) 2000, Benson Medal of Royal Society of Literature in 2003, Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2007 and the most prestigious national award Padma Bhushan receives in the 2014. East west encounter is the prime feature of postmodern literature. This is the technique mostly observes in the postmodern literature in context to Indian writing in English. Many of the Indian writers are the part of western families in that Anita Desai herself is a child of east and west relationship. East west encounter is very closely observed in her writing. The east west encounter takes the literature at the different level where the social, cultural and religious rules gets dismantles. The east west encounter makes many concepts clear for east countries in Volume 8 Issue 11 2019 1644 http://infokara.com/ INFOKARA RESEARCH ISSN NO: 1021-9056 relation with religion and social life. In the east many of the social rules are so stringent, in that woman is not allowed to get education, woman can’t drink, the equality is the issue. In the east west encounters, east get a lot of different knowledge from the west and implement it in their life. The day todays life is become happier and smoother with the help of learning west. The mouthpiece of the fiction is a cosmopolitan character and not a typical native in the fiction. It is observed in the world that many of the natives are settled at abroad and get mingle with western culture. The many of the diasporic writer are the first-generation writers settled in foreign land. The permanent stay at western country gives the insight to native writers and they give the best picture of east west encounters. Though Anita Desai is most famous to writer the east west encounters in her fiction but at the same time her contemporaries Ruth Prawar Jhabwala, Nayantara Sehgal and Bharati Mukherjee writes about east west encounters in their fictions. Anita Desai’s many famous novels carry the east west encounter themes and they are Bye-Bye Blackbird (1971), Voices in the City (1965), Baumgartner's Bombay (1988). Anita Desai’s Voices in the City (1965) deals with the story of three sibling who try to find out the meaning in the life. This is the time when all of them stays at the capital of India Calcutta. The novel represents the social change is happening in the modern India. The young modern Indians accept the western ways of life and a drastic change they feel in the life is narrated in the fiction. This novel is the creation of Anita Desai’s own experiences when she stays at the capital of India Calcutta in the year of 1960. The city of Calcutta is narrated throughout the novel everywhere even it is used as a background to narrate the life of three protagonist. All of the protagonists are not happy in the city due to the pressure of the work, and tries to find out the happiness in the life. She narrates the city as most crowed, most noisy, frenzied and even people do not get the place to think. The three siblings presented in the novels are Monisha, Nirode and Amla. The eldest Monisha is very sensitive, anxious and prone to overthinking in her life. She thinks a lot about herself in the novel that she wants the baby but unable to bear it. So she curses herself that as a woman she can’t give the another life. The marriage of hers is a traditional affair and throughout the life she plays the role of dutiful wife. Throughout the life nobody understands the real self of Monisha. It makes her to take the drastic step in her life and she set herself on fire. Monisha’s dairy plays the important role to understands the real life of hers to others. The entire inside thoughts she writes in her dairy, it is very clear in the fiction that she is not able to find out the best listener in her life. The another Volume 8 Issue 11 2019 1645 http://infokara.com/ INFOKARA RESEARCH ISSN NO: 1021-9056 most important character Nirode, he also adjusts in his entire life in the city of Calcutta. His job at the news paper make him weaker when his wings of self-expression are cut down and makes more dependant. The nature of self-dependency forces him not to take any help from his mother. Nirode in the feat of self-creation starts his various business and fails each time. He starts his own magazine to prove himself but fails at the beginning and it gets fold. Another opportunity he gets to write the play.